The prior art is replete with numerous toys and flying apparatus which have been developed for fun and entertainment, educational purposes and competition. Flying toys attached to strings, including for example, kites, have been used and enjoyed for centuries. More recently, a number of aerodynamic toys designed to be thrown in the air for use in throwing games have become very popular. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,359,678 shows a flying saucer; U.S. Pat. No. 3,976,295 shows a tethered disc enabling retrieval if the disc does not return back to the operator in the course of its flight; U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,946 shows a flying disc construction having an annular roller bearing at its center; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,875 shows a tethered flying disc with a two-piece bearing for control of the disc on a support line.
A number of kite string toys and flying devices have been described in prior art, representative examples of which include U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,172,198, 2,041,233 and 3,752,424. All of these devices require manual reset before the device can re-climb the kite string before the dive down action. U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,853 provides a modification of this type of device by having means to adjust elevator tabs at the rear wing tips of the device and includes a parachute launching mechanism.
Another genre of prior art flying toy using guidelines is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 518,931 wherein a toy is shown in which the inclination of the guidelines can be reversed. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 2,388,513 shows the use of a line connected to a toy air plane to affect the release of toy bombs; U.S. Pat. No. 3,838,855 discloses a toy air plane carried by a support line connected to a fixed reel; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,605 shows a toy operable over an inclined guideline extending between two fixed supports and runs over a fixed support eye to a freely held reel with hand extensions.
The prior art "kite climber" or "string climber" devices are flying elements that travel along a kite string from the operator's end to the kite under the action of wind power and then return back to the operator by gravity. These devices are powered by the wind in only one direction given constant wind conditions and constant operator position. In addition, these devices only "climb" the kite string by wind action, thereby affording only one direction of travel by reacting with the wind; direction in the opposite direction, to the operator's end, is provided by designing the device to collapse and fall back down the kite string due to natural gravitational pull. Further, the orientation of such a device as it travels up the kite string is fixed at 90.degree. during its wind powered climb. Thus, these "kite climbers" are only wind powered in a first direction, must be designed to collapse in order to "travel" in a second direction by gravitational pull, and require that the sail element be oriented at a fixed 90.degree. angle with respect to the kite string in order to react with the wind during its wind powered climb.
Another example of a flying toy is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,893,256 to Wolf et al. which provides a flying toy, such as an airplane, which is suspended from a sleeve through which pass a pair of filaments or guidelines. One pair of the filament ends is secured to a wall, while the other pair of filament ends is held by the user at a level below the wall attachment. In operation, the flying toy is motivated away from the user and towards the wall by moving the filaments apart and away from each other. The Wolf et al. flying toy is provided with a weighted front end and is dependent upon "free" rotation such that after it climbs the filaments, gravity pulls the weighted front end of the plane to swivel it 180.degree. so that it falls back down the guidelines due to the earth's gravitational pull.
More recently, the present inventor has developed a new flying toy, referred to as a "windblade" which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,259,804 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/625,338 to Plow et al. The original "windblade" requires two guidelines for stabilization about which a sail structure has a fixed or locked orientation with respect to the guidelines as it travels in both directions along the guidelines by reacting with the power of the wind, rather than by the power of the wind. In this manner, the wind energy is transformed into a forward kinetic energy of the "windblade". The original windblade and the single line embodiment disclosed in this present application, differs significantly from prior art devices, such as the Wolf et al. flying toy. For example, the "windblade" sail structure, while its orientation is adjustable, does not freely swivel with respect to the guideline(s) while reacting with the wind during travel, the orientation being in the range of 10.degree. to 60.degree.. The sail structure reacts with the wind power to motivate along the guideline(s), rather than freely swiveling in the wind to align in the same direction as the wind direction.
Despite the teachings of the prior art, a need still exists for a flying toy which uses only a single guideline and which is capable of travel in both directions along the guideline. Utilization of only a single guideline in place of the previous dual guidelines will significantly enhance the ease of play for young children and reduce manufacturing costs. Such a flying toy should be designed in such a manner that simple adjustment of the orientation of it's sail structure with respect to the guideline enables it to reverse direction. In addition, such a flying toy should be inexpensive to manufacture, simple to assemble and disassemble and easy and fun to operate.